Category Archives: Covid-19

Congressional leaders held a candlelight vigil outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on February 23, 2021 to mark the more than 500,000 U.S. deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was the third leading underlying cause of death in 2020, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday. Al Drago/Getty Images hide caption

Congressional leaders held a candlelight vigil outside the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. on February 23, 2021 to mark the more than 500,000 U.S. deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was the third leading underlying cause of death in 2020, according to a study published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday.

COVID-19 was the third-underlying cause of death in 2020 after heart disease and cancer, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed on Wednesday.

A pair of reports published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report sheds new light on the approximately 375,000 U.S. deaths attributed to COVID-19 last year, and highlights the pandemic's disproportionate impact on communities of color a point CDC Director Rochelle Walensky emphasized at a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing on Wednesday.

She said deaths related to COVID-19 were higher among American Indian and Alaskan Native persons, Hispanics, Blacks and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander persons than whites. She added that "among nearly all of these ethnic and racial minority groups, the COVID-19 related deaths were more than double the death rate of non-Hispanic white persons."

"The data should serve again as a catalyst for each of us [to] continue to do our part to drive down cases and reduce the spread of COVID-19, and get people vaccinated as soon as possible," she said.

The reports examine data from U.S. death certificates and the National Vital Statistics System to draw conclusions about the accuracy of the country's mortality surveillance and shifts in mortality trends.

One found that the age-adjusted death rate rose by 15.9% in 2020, its first increase in three years.

Overall death rates were highest among Black and American Indian/Alaska Native people, and higher for elderly people than younger people, according to the report. Age-adjusted death rates were higher among males than females.

COVID-19 was reported as either the underlying cause of death or a contributing cause of death for some 11.3% of U.S. fatalities, and replaced suicide as one of the top 10 leading causes of death.

Similarly, COVID-19 death rates were highest among individuals ages 85 and older, with the age-adjusted death rate higher among males than females. The COVID-19 death rate was highest among Hispanic and American Indian/ Alaska Native people.

Researchers emphasized that these death estimates are provisional, as the final annual mortality data for a given year are typically released 11 months after the year ends. Still, they said early estimates can give researchers and policymakers an early indication of changing trends and other "actionable information."

"These data can guide public health policies and interventions aimed at reducing numbers of deaths that are directly or indirectly associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and among persons most affected, including those who are older, male, or from disproportionately affected racial/ethnic minority groups," they added.

The other study examined 378,048 death certificates from 2020 that listed COVID-19 as a cause of death. Researchers said their findings "support the accuracy of COVID-19 mortality surveillance" using official death certificates, noting the importance of high-quality documentation and countering concerns about deaths being improperly attributed to the pandemic.

Among the death certificates reviewed, just 5.5% listed COVID-19 and no other conditions. Among those that included at least one other condition, 97% had either a co-occurring diagnosis of a "plausible chain-of-event" condition such as pneumonia or respiratory failure, a "significant contributing" condition such as hypertension or diabetes, or both.

"Continued messaging and training for professionals who complete death certificates remains important as the pandemic progresses," researchers said. "Accurate mortality surveillance is critical for understanding the impact of variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, and of COVID-19 vaccination and for guiding public health action."

Officials at the Wednesday briefing continued to call on Americans to practice mitigation measures and do their part to keep themselves and others safe, noting that COVID-19 cases continue to rise even as the country's vaccine rollout accelerates.

The 7-day average of new cases is just under 62,000 cases per day, Walensky said, marking a nearly 12% increase from the previous 7-day period. Hospitalizations are also up at about 4,900 admissions per day, she added, with the 7-day average of deaths remaining slightly above 900 per day.

Dr. Celine Gounder, an infectious disease specialist at New York University who served as a COVID-19 adviser on the Biden transition team, told NPR's Morning Edition on Wednesday that she remains concerned about the rate of new infections, even as the country has made considerable progress with its vaccination rollout.

She compared vaccines to a raincoat and an umbrella, noting they provide protection during a rainstorm but not in a hurricane

"And we're really still in a COVID hurricane," Gounder said. "Transmission rates are extremely high. And so even if you've been vaccinated, you really do need to continue to be careful, avoid crowds and wear masks in public."

Read the original:

COVID-19 Confirmed As 3rd Leading Cause Of Death In US Last Year : Coronavirus Updates - NPR

The West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reports as of March 30, 2021, there have been 2,438,840 total confirmatory laboratory results received for COVID-19, with 141,332 total cases and 2,640 total deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of a 74-year old female from Raleigh County and an 84-year old female from Raleigh County.

These are holes in our hearts and communities, said Bill J. Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. Our lives have been forever changed by the pandemic.

CASES PER COUNTY: Barbour (1,310), Berkeley (10,632), Boone (1,740), Braxton (837), Brooke (2,061), Cabell (8,385), Calhoun (243), Clay (389), Doddridge (514), Fayette (2,981), Gilmer (730), Grant (1,167), Greenbrier (2,498), Hampshire (1,609), Hancock (2,630), Hardy (1,391), Harrison (5,144), Jackson (1,775), Jefferson (4,009), Kanawha (13,045), Lewis (1,099), Lincoln (1,355), Logan (2,935), Marion (3,924), Marshall (3,171), Mason (1,868), McDowell (1,411), Mercer (4,385), Mineral (2,640), Mingo (2,301), Monongalia (8,633), Monroe (1,015), Morgan (1,007), Nicholas (1,378), Ohio (3,833), Pendleton (666), Pleasants (817), Pocahontas (616), Preston (2,714), Putnam (4,542), Raleigh (5,494), Randolph (2,462), Ritchie (639), Roane (523), Summers (725), Taylor (1,149), Tucker (516), Tyler (657), Upshur (1,780), Wayne (2,741), Webster (442), Wetzel (1,165), Wirt (368), Wood (7,438), Wyoming (1,823).

Delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from the local health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the local health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain county may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual in question may have crossed the state border to be tested. Such is the case of Barbour, Pleasants and Tucker counties in this report.

Free COVID-19 testing is available today in Barbour, Berkeley, Boone, Brooke, Clay, Fayette, Grant, Hardy, Jefferson, Lincoln, Logan, Mason, Mineral, Mingo, Morgan, Nicholas, Putnam, Raleigh and Wyoming counties.

March 30

Barbour County

9:00 AM 11:00 AM, Barbour County Health Department, 109 Wabash Avenue, Philippi, WV

3:00 PM 7:00 PM, Junior Volunteer Fire Department, 331 Row Avenue, Junior, WV

Berkeley County

1:00 PM 5:00 PM, Shenandoah Community Health, 99 Tavern Road, Martinsburg, WV

4:30 PM 8:00 PM, Dorothy McCormack Building, 2000 Foundation Way, Martinsburg, WV

10:00 AM 6:00 PM, 891 Auto Parts Place, Martinsburg, WV

10:00 AM 6:00 PM, Ambrose Park, 25404 Mall Drive, Martinsburg, WV

Boone County

Brooke County

Clay County

1:00 PM 3:00 PM, Clay County Health Department, 452 Main Street, Clay, WV

Fayette County

9:00 AM 11:00 AM, Fayette County Health Department, 202 Church Street, Fayetteville, WV

10:00 AM 2:00 PM, Ruby Welcome Center, 55 Hazel Lane, Mount Hope, WV

Grant County

Hardy County

Jefferson County

10:00 AM 6:00 PM, Hollywood Casino, 750 Hollywood Drive, Charles Town, WV

10:00 AM 6:00 PM, Shepherd University Wellness Center Parking Lot, 164 University Drive, Shepherdstown, WV

Lincoln County

Logan County

Mason County

Mineral County

10:00 AM 6:00 PM, Mineral County Health Department, 541 Harley O Staggers Drive, Keyser, WV

Mingo County

3:00 PM 7:00 PM, Kermit Fire Department, 49 Main Street, Kermit, WV

Morgan County

10:00 AM 6:00 PM, Valley Health War Memorial Hospital, 1 Health Way, Berkeley Spring, WV

Nicholas County

Putnam County

9:00 AM 1:00 PM, Liberty Square, 613 Putnam Village, Hurricane, WV

Raleigh County

Wyoming County

11:00 AM 3:00 PM, Wyoming County Fire Department, 12 Park Street, Pineville, WV

Read the rest here:

COVID-19 Daily Update 3-30-2021 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

Governor Charlie Baker on Tuesday addressed rising rates of COVID-19 cases on Cape Cod, saying his administration is in constant contact with officials in the region and noting Barnstable County has the highest vaccination rate in the state.

Were pretty much in daily contact with the health care and public health community down on the Cape and are constantly talking to them about testing resources and vaccine resources, Baker said after touring the mass vaccination site at the Hynes Convention Center with Dr. Rochelle Walensky of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Senator Edward Markey, and other Massachusetts officials.

While the Cape, which has a population that skews older, leads the state in COVID-19 vaccinations, both COVID-19 case numbers and positivity rates have increased in recent weeks. About half of the regions communities are now considered to be at high risk for the spread of the virus, according to the states latest town-by-town report.

The Cape, among other things, has the highest percent of its population vaccinated of any part of Massachusetts, but were going to continue to be pretty aggressively involved with them around testing, around contact tracing, around isolation policy and support and around vaccine policy as well, Baker said Tuesday. Theres a lot going on down there and were paying a lot of attention to it and were spending a lot of time with them on it.

According to state data released Thursday, 39 percent of residents in Barnstable County, which encompasses all towns on Cape Cod, have received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose as of March 23, the highest rate in the state. Overall, 29 percent of Massachusetts residents have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine.

Baker did not address whether the state would redistribute some doses from mass vaccination sites to community clinics on the Cape, or set up an emergency vaccination site in the region, measures Yarmouth Health Director Bruce Murphy told the Globe he would like to see.

However, Baker noted that theres a regional collaborative, a system in which municipal governments band together to create higher-capacity regional sites that can deliver more vaccinations than a single community, in Barnstable.

Theyre doing a ton of testing as well as a significant amount of vaccinating and have been for the better part of the past month, Baker said of the regional collaborative. As I said, they have vaccinated more people on the Cape than any other part of Massachusetts as a percent of their total population.

The rising metrics on the Cape have alarmed local officials, with Murphy warning the region could be witnessing a third wave outbreak.

I know theyre looking at doing emergency vaccination sites around Boston, but it would seem that you would need one down here if thats where I believe the epicenter is of the third wave, Murphy said this week. I know they mention the uptick is coming, Im saying this is the epicenter of the third wave on the Cape between towns increasing in the high risk and the P.1 variants really increasing down here.

While key metrics in Yarmouth, Barnstable, and other Cape communities trend upward, indicators of COVID-19s spread in Massachusetts overall have remained lower. As of last Thursdays weekly report, the states average daily rate of infection per 100,000 residents was at 21.5, and Massachusetts positivity rate was at 2.01 percent, according to the most recent state data.

The states COVID-19 command center said in a statement that it is working with Barnstable County to address the spike in cases and is providing mobile testing sites in the region this week.

The administration has worked with Barnstable County to help open 13 COVID-19 vaccination sites and Barnstable County residents are leading the state for vaccines doses, with 41% of residents having received a first dose and 24% of fully vaccinated - the highest percentages of any county in the state, Kate Reilly, a command center spokeswoman, wrote in an e-mail.

Bakers comments Tuesday came as he toured the convention center with Walensky, who the day before said she had a recurring feeling of impending doom over the direction of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States.

We have so much reason for hope, Walensky said after the tour. We have 95 million Americans vaccinated with one dose of vaccine, and 53 million Americans who are fully vaccinated.

In Massachusetts, Walensky said, 3.5 million people have received one dose, and one in five people, 20 percent, are fully vaccinated.

Amanda Kaufman can be reached at amanda.kaufman@globe.com. Follow her on Twitter @amandakauf1.

See the article here:

Baker addresses rising COVID-19 cases on Cape Cod: Were paying a lot of attention to it - The Boston Globe

Washington state will no longer require people to use the Phase Finder tool to prove they're eligible for the shot.

Beginning Wednesday, another two million people will be eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Washington state. The state Department of Health (DOH) will also no longer require people to use the Phase Finder tool to prove they're eligible for the shot.

On March 31, Washington will move into Phase 1B Tiers 3 and 4 of the vaccine rollout making vaccine appointments open for:

The DOH will also no longer require people to use their online questionnaire, known as Phase Finder, to determine eligibility for the shot. The DOH said last week they trust most people will continue to do the right thing and wait for their turn.

The DOH will instead refer people to Washington's vaccine locator, Vaccinate WA.On the website, people will be able to see if they fall into a qualified group, and they will be able to find providers with available vaccine appointments in their area.

State health officials said removing Phase Finder as a requirement is intended to speed up the vaccination process and reduce barriers for those who wish to get vaccinated.

The state is working to vaccinate as many people as possible before eligibility opens to everyone 16 and older in Washington by May 1 as directed by President Joe Biden.

Gov. Jay Inslee said Tuesday there's a possibility the vaccine could be made available to everyone before that deadline, but it may only be possible if the state sees a "rapid pace" of doses delivered in the next few weeks.

Deb Kalmbach of Sequim recalls her vaccine experience.

There were hundreds of cars by the time we got there at 3:45 a.m., but we got in, Kalmbach said. She waited 8 hours in her car before receiving her shot.

Her friend Mary Ravanal of Shelton knows the struggle, as well.

I sat at the computer all day long, day after day. And got an appointment at QFC, Ravanal said.

In Snohomish County, roughly 30,000 more people become eligible on Wednesday. Health officials say their system is already at its limit.

Weve got more demand than supply, said Dr. Chris Spitters, health officer with the Snohomish Health District.

View post:

Another 2 million people in Washington eligible for COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday - KING5.com

Leading researcher Dr. Ali Mokdad has been deeply affected by the coronavirus pandemic, on a personal and professional level.

SEATTLE Throughout the pandemic, University of Washington scientists have predicted, with surprising accuracy, the number of COVID-19 infections and deaths in our state and across the nation.

Their models have gotten more accurate as theyve collected more data from around the world. Click here to see the newest projections from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global health research center at the University of Washington.

UW researcher Dr. Ali Mokdad told KING 5 News that COVID-19 is seasonal. Mokdad said, across the globe, there are more cases in the winter months.

Were going to see a rise in cases in winter, but not as [many] cases of mortality, because we will have many Americans vaccinated by that time. Theyre not going to die, thanks to the vaccines that are safe and effective. But well see a rise in mortality and cases in winter because of that cyclical nature, Mokdad said.

Will the virus eventually go away? Or will we experience the coronavirus every winter, much like the flu?

We have to work on all scenarios and be ready for all of them," Mokdad said. "Thats the best way to be prepared."

He said eliminating the virus will largely depend on our own behaviors. He also predicts there will be more deaths in the U.S. from COVID-19 than the 1918 Influenza Pandemic when roughly 618,000 Americans died.

Unfortunately yes, we will reach higher than that, Mokdad said. Simply because this virus is still circulating at high levels and its mutating much faster than anything we have seen before. We have thousands and thousands of mutations that we are able to see right now and detect, so this will be with us for a while especially this coming winter. Unfortunately, we will hit that level that we hit in 1918.

However, Mokdad notes the comparison to 1918 is not apples to apples.

Right now, we have better medication, we have better hygiene, we have much better hospitals and much better techniques that prevent mortality. So, in many ways, this virus is much deadlier and dangerous than what we [saw] in 1918.

Mokdad also revealed how difficult the pandemic has been for him, personally and professionally. On the personal side, two of his cousins died from the virus and an aunt was hospitalized for several weeks. He said many of his family members also lost their jobs. Meanwhile, on the professional side, he said he received threats throughout the pandemic.

When you come up with a message that says wear a mask and everybody is attacking you, saying no, I shouldnt wear a mask -- sometimes you wake up in the morning [] sometimes you wake up and you start crying, Mokdad said. We received [..] attacks. you should see my email, we got even mail at home, myself and Chris Murray, our director. People were very hard on us."

So what motivates Mokdad to keep doing his work?

We owe it to the people that lost their lives, we owe it to them to do it right," said Mokdad. "We owe it to them to rebuild better, we owe it to them not to leave anybody behind."

Go here to see the original:

UW Dr. Ali Mokdad explains accuracy of COVID-19 predictions and the personal toll of the pandemic - KING5.com

The number of COVID-19 hospitalizations in Colorado has stalled at around 300 for weeks.

DENVER If you're also guilty of refreshing Chris Vanderveen's Twitter account for his 4 p.m. numbers update, you might have noticed that lately, Colorado's hospitalization numbers have just stayed ... flat.

This is a key metric in the state's fight against COVID-19, since one of the main goals is not to overwhelm hospital systems with people fighting the virus.

At the peak of the winter surge, there were nearly 2,000 novel coronavirus patients in Colorado hospitals. That number has dropped to around 320 and has stayed around there in recent weeks.

Age has been the biggest risk factor for COVID-19 hospitalization and death, but as of Monday, Gov. Jared Polis (D-Colorado) said 79% of people over 70 has received a COVID-19 vaccine, as well as 71% of those 65-69 and 70% of people 60 to 64.

At this point, the state doesn't publicly provide numbers for how many people with a vaccine has been hospitalized, but did say the shot "significantly reduces the likelihood of serious illness and there is increasing evidence that vaccination prevents mild illness and reduces transmission."

This leads to the question: what type of patients are currently being hospitalized for COVID-19 in Colorado?

There is hospital-level data on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) website. As of Tuesday, the seven-day moving average of patients admitted to the hospital was at 52. That number has stayed more or less steady since early March, and peaked at 281 on Dec. 4.

Broken down by demographics as of the week of March 21:

- 8.09% of hospitalized patients were over 80

- 33.82% were between 60 and 79 years old

- 37.5% of hospitalized patients were between 40 and 59 years old

- 16.91% were between 20 and 39 years old

- 3.68% were between 0 and 19 years old

At the height of the pandemic, more than 65% of the patients in the hospital were over 60.

Since the winter peak, the proportion of patients who died at the hospital has also decreased, according to the chart below from CDPHE.

CDPHE said patients spend an average of eight days in the hospital after getting admitted.

The COVID-19 unit at the Sky Ridge Medical Center in Douglas County is much quieter now than it was in 2020.

Chief Medical Officer Dr. Eric Lung said at the peak of the winter surge, up to 65 patients were in the unit. Now there is one COVID-19 patient in the ICU, and nine getting treatment on other floors.

He said none of them have had one or two doses of the vaccine. The youngest of those patients is 38 years old, and the oldest is 92, with an average age of about 60. Many of them have underlying health conditions.

The demographics of hospitalized patients differ from the case data. As of Monday, 40% of positive COVID-19 tests were from Coloradans between 20 and 40.

The reason why hospitalizations have stayed flat isn't clear. In recent weeks, the number of COVID-19 new cases has also largely stalled at around 1,000 per day.

To put that into context, the most cases the state has reported in a day was 6,783 on Nov. 12. Back in September, during a summer lull, the seven-day average of new cases was 283.

There has not been an official explanation for why the numbers have stalled in Colorado.

Earlier this week, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of a potential fourth wave of COVID-19 in the U.S.

Earlier this month, Colorado officials warned that more contagious COVID-19 variants could account for 30% of cases in the state, but these have not been directly attributed to the seeming plateau of cases and hospitalizations.

Long said his hospital has been in around the 10-15 patient per day range for the past one to two months. He said this is because the state is still in the COVID-19 pandemic, and more vaccinations are needed to stave off the virus.

Original post:

As more vulnerable Coloradans get the vaccine, who is still in the hospital for COVID-19? - 9News.com KUSA

Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. are expected to bottom out in the next two weeks and then may inch higher as the nation races to blunt an incipient new wave of cases with its vaccination campaign.

A plateau or small increase -- instead of the hoped-for decline -- could mean tens of thousands of additional fatalities.

The deaths are likely to dip to 6,028 in the week ending April 10 before slightly increasing, according to the Covid-19 Forecast Hub, a project from the University of Massachusetts Amhersts Reich Lab. Its so-called ensemble forecast, which was updated Tuesday, is based on dozens of independent models and projects fatalities four weeks into the future.

Weekly deaths as forecast by Covid-19 Forecast Hub's ensemble model

Source: University of Massachusetts Amherst's Reich Lab,Covid-19 ForecastHub

Confirmed and suspected Covid-19 hospitalizations are rising again in half the country, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has warned that the country may be entering a fourth wave of the pandemic.

Public-health experts had hoped that vaccinations would mean a steady decline in deaths through the summer, but the best-case scenario isnt coming to pass. A plateau around 1,000 deaths a day translates into some 30,000 deaths a month -- and many more by Independence Day, when President Joe Biden has said the country may return to a semblance of normality.

Still, the targeted vaccination of nearly three-quarters of the 65-and-over community should prevent a death surge of the magnitude the U.S. saw in prior waves. U.S. seniors account for 4 in 5 Covid-19 deaths, and at least 73% of the elderly have had one or more dose.

Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal.

See the rest here:

U.S. Covid Deaths Expected to Rise Soon With New Wave Emerging - Bloomberg

Mothers and advocates for families cite a long list of policy frustrations. Congress declined to mandate paid leave in the stimulus bill, opting instead to extend a tax credit to employers who voluntarily offer the policy. While the relief bill included money for school reopenings, the support has not been well-targeted and comes toward the end of the school year. And it remains unclear whether the administration will push for the child care tax credit to be made permanent.

Moms are getting screwed on the right or the left. I dont feel like anyone is out there fighting for us, said Reshma Saujani, the founder and chief executive of Girls Who Code, a group that works to attract more young women to become programmers and engineers. There is an enormous amount of populist mom rage and I dont think that moms feel seen. Why arent the schools open now? Every day that goes by, another mother is losing their job. Its not a priority.

Ms. Saujani is the creator of the Marshall Plan for Moms, a package of policies funding paid leave, affordable child care and pay equity aimed at helping mothers who have struggled during the pandemic. While pieces of her plan have been introduced in Congress and were included in the relief bill, and have been embraced by policymakers, celebrities and activists, Ms. Saujani would like to see more attention paid to a situation she views as a national emergency.

Absolutely everything is a struggle right now getting sick days, getting my son to learn, getting help, said Adriana Alvarez, a single mother of a 9-year-old, who works at a McDonalds just outside Chicago and has significantly cut back her hours in the last year. There has to be a solution thats funded by the government to help people like me.

For others who have pushed for these policies for years, the moment seems most ripe: If a pandemic is not enough to persuade lawmakers to pass policies like paid family leave, will anything ever convince them?

Thestimuluspayments would be $1,400 for most recipients. Those who are eligible would also receive an identical payment for each of their children. To qualify for the full $1,400, a single person would need an adjusted gross income of $75,000 or below. For heads of household, adjusted gross income would need to be $112,500 or below, and for married couples filing jointly that number would need to be $150,000 or below. To be eligible for a payment, a person must have a Social Security number. Read more.

Buying insurance through the government program known as COBRA would temporarily become a lot cheaper. COBRA, for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, generally lets someone who loses a job buy coverage via the former employer. But its expensive: Under normal circumstances, a person may have to pay at least 102 percent of the cost of the premium. Under the relief bill, the government would pay the entire COBRA premium from April 1 through Sept. 30. A person who qualified for new, employer-based health insurance someplace else before Sept. 30 would lose eligibility for the no-cost coverage. And someone who left a job voluntarily would not be eligible, either. Read more

This credit, which helps working families offset the cost of care for children under 13 and other dependents, would be significantly expanded for a single year. More people would be eligible, and many recipients would get a bigger break. The bill would also make the credit fully refundable, which means you could collect the money as a refund even if your tax bill was zero. That will be helpful to people at the lower end of the income scale, said Mark Luscombe, principal federal tax analyst at Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting. Read more.

There would be a big one for people who already have debt. You wouldnt have to pay income taxes on forgiven debt if you qualify for loan forgiveness or cancellation for example, if youve been in an income-driven repayment plan for the requisite number of years, if your school defrauded you or if Congress or the president wipes away $10,000 of debt for large numbers of people. This would be the case for debt forgiven between Jan. 1, 2021, and the end of 2025. Read more.

The bill would provide billions of dollars in rental and utility assistance to people who are struggling and in danger of being evicted from their homes. About $27 billion would go toward emergency rental assistance. The vast majority of it would replenish the so-called Coronavirus Relief Fund, created by the CARES Act and distributed through state, local and tribal governments,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Thats on top of the $25 billion in assistance provided by the relief package passed in December. To receive financial assistance which could be used for rent, utilities and other housing expenses households would have to meet severalconditions. Household income could not exceed 80 percent of the area median income, at least one household member must be at risk of homelessness or housing instability, and individuals would have to qualify for unemployment benefits or have experienced financial hardship (directly or indirectly) because of the pandemic. Assistance could be provided for up to 18 months,accordingto the National Low Income Housing Coalition. Lower-income families that have been unemployed for three months or more would be given priority for assistance. Read more.

Nearly 200 businesses signed on to a letter to congressional leaders last week urging them to include paid family and medical leave in the upcoming infrastructure package, which many believe is the best chance to get the policy approved by Congress. Liberal organizations and caregiver advocacy groups started their own $20 million campaign, called #CareCantWait, that is pushing the administration to expand access to child care, paid family and medical leave, as well as home and community-based services for people with disabilities and aging adults.

The rest is here:

Why Mothers Are Skeptical of Covid-19 Aid Promises - The New York Times

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) Two new deaths were reported by theSouth Dakota Department of Healthas hospitalizations increased on Tuesday.

The two deaths reported were women in the 60-69 age range. The death toll is at 1,935.

According to the latest update, 159 new total coronavirus cases were announced bringing the states total case count to 117,495 up from Monday (117,336).

While the difference in the total case count reported Tuesday and Monday equals 159, when you add the PCR, or newly confirmed, cases (118) and antigen, or new probable, cases (47), there were 165 new cases.

There are 95 current hospitalizations as of Tuesday, up from 91 on Monday. Total hospitalizations are at 6,985.

Active cases are now at 2,436, up from Monday (2,393).

Total recovered cases are now at 113,124, up from Monday (113,010).

Total persons negative is now at 326,102, from Monday (325,754).

There were 507 new persons tested in the data reported on Tuesday for a new persons-tested positivity rate of 31.3%.

The latest seven-day all test positivity rate reported by the DOH is 10.1%. The latest one-day PCR test positivity rate is 9.4%.

According to the DOH, 205,269 doses of the Pfizer vaccine have been administered with 8,033 doses of the Janssen vaccine and 190,879 of the Moderna vaccine given out to a total number of 249,042 persons.

There have been 72,683 persons who have completed two doses of Moderna and 82,447 who have received two doses of Pfizer, according to the DOH.

When combining state and federal vaccine distribution, the state estimates 42.26% of the population has received at least one dose and 28.00% have received both doses.

Originally posted here:

COVID-19 in South Dakota: 159 new total cases; Death toll increases to 1,935; Active cases at 2,436 - KELOLAND.com

Heres what you need to know:Fourth graders at Alvarado Elementary, a school in Long Beach, Calif., were back in the classroom on Monday for their first day of in-person learning in more than a year.Credit...Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images

Elementary students returned to classrooms in Long Beach, Calif., on Monday and campuses from Los Angeles to Boston prepared for significant expansions of in-person instruction as a majority of the nations districts have now begun to reopen school buildings, many of which have been closed for more than a year.

On Monday, Burbio, which monitors some 1,200 districts including the largest 200 in the country, reported that 53.1 percent of students were in schools offering daily, in-person classes, and that for the first time, the proportion of students attending school virtually or in hybrid classes had dropped.

The change, Burbio officials said, appeared to be driven by the return in elementary and middle schools to in-person classes, and by the new rules from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention permitting schools to allow three feet of social distance instead of six feet in elementary schools.

But a number of roadblocks to reopening remain. On the West Coast, large urban districts generally have lagged behind their counterparts across the rest of the nation. Surging infections in Southern California after the winter holidays were partly to blame for a slow rebound in the Los Angeles school system.

Part of the slow start can be traced to resistance from teachers, whose unions generally are more powerful in Democratic-led Washington, Oregon and California than in many other states, and who have been wary of returning to what they regard as a hazardous workplace, despite federal guidance that elementary schools in particular are safe when health precautions are followed.

Even some schools where teachers have agreed to return are still experiencing setbacks. Schools in Oakland and San Francisco, for example, are scheduled to reopen next month for elementary and special-needs students. But labor agreements in both of those California cities have allowed substantial numbers of teachers to opt out, leaving some schools without enough teachers to reopen and prompting others to scramble for substitutes.

Public schools in Californias top three districts by enrollment Los Angeles, San Diego and Fresno have said they will begin to allow grade-school students back onto campus later in April, as new coronavirus cases have fallen sharply statewide.

And on Monday, Long Beach the states fourth-largest district, with about 70,000 students began allowing about 14,000 elementary students back into school buildings for about 2 hours each day, five days a week.

The Long Beach school district was able to open earlier than other large California school systems because labor unions there agreed last summer to reopen as soon as health conditions permitted, and because the city was able to start vaccinating teachers earlier than other districts in the state.

Unlike most other cities in Los Angeles County, Long Beach has its own public health department, giving the city its own vaccine supplies and the power to set its own vaccine priorities, at a time when the county as a whole was making teachers wait until after other groups, like residents 65 and older, were vaccinated.

A city with its own health department has the ability to be more nimble, said Jill Baker, the citys schools superintendent, who called the return to classrooms this week exciting and momentous.

The school district is among the citys largest employers, and two-thirds of its students qualify for free or reduced-price lunches, so vaccinating school employees and reopening classrooms was viewed as economically important, Ms. Baker said.

In-person classes for older students are scheduled to resume April 19, with grades 6 to 8 getting the option to return on April 20 and grades 9 to 11 on April 26. The last day of school will be in mid-June.

transcript

transcript

When I first started at the C.D.C. about two months ago, I made a promise to you: I would tell you the truth, even if it was not the news we wanted to hear. Now is one of those times when I have to share the truth, and I have to hope and trust you will listen. Im going to pause here. Im going to lose the script. And Im going to reflect on the recurring feeling I have of impending doom. We have so much to look forward to, so much promise and potential of where we are, and so much reason for hope. But right now, Im scared. We have come such a long way: Three historic scientific breakthrough vaccines, and we are rolling them out so very fast. So Im speaking today not necessarily as your C.D.C. director, and not only as your C.D.C. director, but as a wife, as a mother, as a daughter, to ask you to just please hold on a little while longer. I so badly want to be done. I know you all so badly want to be done. We are just almost there, but not quite yet. We can change this trajectory of the pandemic, but it will take all of us recommitting to following the public health prevention strategies consistently while we work to get the American public vaccinated. We do not have the luxury of inaction. For the health of our country, we must work together now to prevent a fourth surge.

President Biden, facing a rise in coronavirus cases around the country, called on Monday for governors and mayors to reinstate mask mandates as the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned of impending doom from a potential fourth surge of the pandemic.

The presidents comments came only hours after the C.D.C. director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, appeared to fight back tears as she pleaded with Americans to hold on a little while longer and continue following public health advice, like wearing masks and social distancing, to curb the viruss spread. The nation has so much reason for hope, she added.

But right now, she said, Im scared.

The back-to-back appeals reflected a growing sense of urgency among top White House officials and government scientists that the chance to conquer the pandemic, now in its second year, may slip through its grasp. According to a New York Times database, the seven-day average of new virus cases as of Sunday was about 63,000, a level comparable with late Octobers average. That was up from 54,000 a day two weeks earlier, an increase of more than 16 percent.

Public health experts say that the nation is in a race between the vaccination campaign and new, worrisome coronavirus variants, including B.1.1.7, a more transmissible and possibly more lethal version of the virus that has been spreading rapidly. While more than one in three American adults have received at least one shot and nearly one-fifth are fully vaccinated, the nation is a long way from reaching so-called herd immunity the tipping point that comes when spread of a virus begins to slow because so many people, estimated at 70 to 90 percent of the population, are immune to it.

The warnings come at the same time as some promising news: A C.D.C. report released Monday confirmed the findings of last years clinical trials that vaccines developed by Moderna and Pfizer were highly effective against Covid-19. The report documented that the vaccines work to prevent both symptomatic and asymptomatic infections in real-world conditions.

The seven-day average of vaccines administered hit 2.76 million on Monday, an increase over the pace the previous week, according to data reported by the C.D.C. On Sunday alone, nearly 3.3 million people were inoculated, said Andy Slavitt, a senior White House pandemic adviser.

Mr. Biden said on Monday that the administration was taking steps to expand vaccine eligibility and access, including opening a dozen new mass vaccination centers. He directed his coronavirus response team to ensure that 90 percent of Americans would be no farther than five miles from a vaccination site by April 19.

The coronavirus vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech are proving highly effective at preventing symptomatic and asymptomatic infections under real-world conditions, federal health researchers reported on Monday.

Consistent with clinical trial data, a two-dose regimen prevented 90 percent of infections by two weeks after the second shot. One dose prevented 80 percent of infections by two weeks after vaccination.

The news arrives even as the nation rapidly broadens eligibility for vaccines, and the average number of daily shots continues to rise. The seven-day average of vaccines administered hit 2.76 million on Monday, an increase over the pace the previous week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But the virus may be gaining renewed momentum. According to a New York Times database, the seven-day average of new virus cases as of Sunday was 63,000, an increase of more than 16 percent over the past two weeks.

Similar upticks over the summer and winter led to major surges in the spread of disease, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a news briefing on Monday. She said she had a sense of impending doom about a possible fourth surge of the virus.

The nation has so much reason for hope, she said. But right now Im scared.

Scientists have debated whether vaccinated people may still get asymptomatic infections and transmit the virus to others. The new study, by researchers at the C.D.C., suggested that since infections were so rare, transmission was likely rare, too.

There also has been concern that variants may render the vaccines less effective. The studys results do not confirm that fear. Troubling variants were circulating during the time of the study from Dec. 14, 2020, to March 13, 2021 yet the vaccines still provided powerful protection.

The C.D.C. enrolled 3,950 people at high risk of being exposed to the virus because they were health care workers, first responders or others on the front lines. None had previously been infected.

Most participants 62.8 percent received both shots of the vaccine during the study period, and 12.1 percent had one shot. They collected their own nasal swabs each week, which were sent to a central location for P.C.R. testing, the most accurate type of test. The weekly swabs allowed the researchers to detect asymptomatic infections as well as symptomatic ones.

The investigators asked participants about symptoms associated with infection, including fever, chills, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, diarrhea, muscle aches, or loss of smell or taste. They also analyzed patients medical records to detect illnesses.

Fifty-eight percent of the infections were detected before people had symptoms. Just 10.2 percent of infected people never developed symptoms.

Among those who were fully vaccinated, there were .04 infections per 1,000 person-days, meaning that among 1,000 persons there would be .04 infections in a day.

There were 0.19 infections per 1,000 person-days among those who had had one dose of the vaccine. In contrast, there were 1.38 infections per 1,000 person-days in unvaccinated people.

Dr. Walensky urged Americans to continue taking precautions and to waste no time getting the shots as soon as they are eligible.

I am asking you to just hold on a little longer, to get vaccinated when you can, so that all of those people that we all love will still be here when this pandemic ends, she said.

HOUSTON As Texas joined several other states on Monday in opening eligibility for coronavirus vaccines to millions of healthy adults, anticipation for the shot could be seen in the long line that snaked outside Booker T. Washington High School in Houston.

This is a good sign, said Nelson Garcia, 48, who waited more than two hours with his two young children before he was finally within reach of protection from a disease that could be deadly for people with diabetes like himself. It looks like everyone wants to get vaccinated. I want my children to see that this is a good thing and that the vaccine may finally help us get back to normal.

On Monday, Texas became the largest state to expand vaccination eligibility to anyone 16 or older, or about 22 million people. Long lines were replicated across the state and appointments were difficult to snag online. Vaccination spots at HEB.com, the website for the most popular supermarket chain in Texas, were few and far between.

The spike was expected. Virtually anyone can get a vaccine now, said Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, a Democrat who represents the Houston region.

Five other states, including neighboring Oklahoma and Louisiana, as well as Kansas, Ohio and North Dakota, also opened their doors for all adults on Monday. Several reported increased interest in the vaccine, but the numbers did not overwhelm the system of vaccine providers.

Also on Monday, officials in New York State, once the center of the pandemic with about 31,000 deaths in New York City alone, announced that beginning on Tuesday, all adults 30 and older would be eligible for the vaccine. At least 36 other states have vowed to offer shots to every adult who wants one by mid-April.

Six states Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire and South Carolina plan to expand eligibility this week, officials in those states said.

The German health authority responsible for vaccine guidelines recommended on Tuesday that the country suspend use of the AstraZeneca vaccine in adults under 60 because of concerns about a possible association with blood clots. The action came a day after Canada suspended its use in people 55 and under.

Earlier in the day, a number of local authorities in Germany including Berlin, Munich and the state of Brandenburg had made similar moves.

A small district in North Rhine-Westphalia banned use of the AstraZeneca vaccine on Monday for all women below the age of 55, after serious episodes last week involving two women who had received the vaccine: one, 47, died of sinus vein thrombosis and another, 28, became seriously ill.

No causative link has been established between the patients conditions and the vaccine.

Chancellor Angela Merkel met Tuesday evening with state governors to discuss the AstraZeneca vaccine, and said that Germany would follow the recommendation and hold off using it to inoculate people under 60 unless they have discussed the risks with their doctor first.

France and several Nordic countries have also taken a precautionary stance on the vaccine, even after the European Unions top drug regulator cleared it as safe this month. Some suspensions in Europe may have been driven as much by political considerations as by science.

In Canada, Dr. Caroline Quach-Thanh, the chairwoman of the National Advisory Committee on Immunization, said at a video news conference on Monday that more study was needed. Given alternative vaccines are available in Canada, N.A.C.I. feels it is very important to study the risks and benefit as a precautionary measure, she noted.

The Canadian decision was made after reviewing evidence emerging from Germany, where the Paul-Ehrlich Institute, the countrys vaccine regulatory body, reported earlier this month that at least seven people who had recently received the AstraZeneca vaccine had developed a very rare, potentially fatal condition involving blood clots that can block the drainage of blood from the brain, associated with low blood platelet counts (thrombocytopenia) and bleeding.

(An earlier version of this item referred incompletely to the condition.)

Statistically, seven cases was significantly higher than normal for the population of 1.6 million adults that had received the vaccine in Germany by March 15, the institute said; by its calculations, just one case would have been expected.

The Canadian health authority continues to recommend the AstraZeneca vaccine for older adults, who are much more susceptible than younger people to serious cases of Covid-19, and have not appeared to develop blood clots in studies conducted in Europe, the committee members said.

We want to prevent hospitalizations and severe disease for those over 55, Dr. Quach-Thanh said.

The AstraZeneca vaccine, created by Oxford University, was approved in late February for use in Canada but has suffered setbacks there and elsewhere. Soon after its approval, N.A.C.I. recommended that it not be administered to people 65 and older, because of a lack of data about that age group; two weeks later, N.A.C.I. waived its initial concerns and approved the vaccine for all adults.

The vaccine was the third approved in the country, after those from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. Just over 300,000, or 6 percent, of the doses administered in Canada so far have been AstraZenecas vaccine. The Biden administration promised this month to loan Canada 1.5 million more doses of the vaccine, which still has not been approved for use in the United States.

New York can begin vaccinating anyone 30 or older on Tuesday and will make all residents 16 or over eligible on April 6, beating President Bidens goal of making every adult eligible for a coronavirus vaccine by May 1, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Monday.

New York was one of only a few states that had not yet set a timeline for universal adult eligibility. Five states had already expanded eligibility fully by the end of last week; six did so on Monday; seven more will follow later this week, and another six on April 5. At least 11 states have said they will wait until May 1.

Though Mr. Cuomo has gradually loosened vaccine eligibility criteria over the last month, he expressed reluctance last week to set a specific target date for doing away with the states requirements. The governor said he did not want to outline a timeline for more widespread vaccination until he was more confident that New York would have adequate vaccine supply on hand for its population.

I just want to make sure that the allocation projections that were getting from the feds are right, frankly, Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference last week. I dont want to say, Were going to open up to 30-year-olds in three weeks, and then something happens with the allocation.

Mr. Cuomos announcement comes as New York has been adding new virus cases at one of the highest rates among U.S. states. As of Monday, the state had a seven-day average of 49 new virus cases a day for every 100,000 residents, according to a New York Times database, second only to New Jersey. (The nation as a whole was averaging 19 new cases per 100,000 people.)

Even as the number of new cases continues to mount, the state has not faced anywhere near the level of devastation that it experienced a year ago, when hospitals were overwhelmed with patients and morgues were overflowing.

Eligible only in some counties

Eligible only in some counties

Eligible only in some counties

Buoyed by its vaccination progress, the state has also been gradually reopening businesses in the last several weeks. Mr. Cuomo allowed sporting events and concerts to resume at large venues last month and movie theaters to bring back audiences this month. Restaurants in New York City are now allowed to serve diners indoors at 50 percent capacity, their highest level of indoor dining since Mr. Cuomo closed them last year at the onset of the pandemic.

As of Monday morning, 29.6 percent of people in New York State had received at least one shot of a vaccine, while 16.8 percent were fully vaccinated, according to the states data.

Currently, all people 50 and over are eligible to receive the vaccine in New York, in addition to teachers, some essential workers and people with certain medical conditions that make them more susceptible to serious illness from the virus.

Massachusetts on Monday expanded a new state-financed coronavirus testing program to allow every public school in the state to test all students and staff members weekly for the rest of the school year, using a pooled testing approach that could be a model for school districts nationwide.

More than 1,000 schools in Massachusetts, representing nearly half the districts in the state, are already participating in the program.

Since February, the program has analyzed 22,679 pooled samples from students, teachers and staff members, reporting on Monday a positivity rate of less than 1 percent, considered low. Since the pooled samples typically include swabs from seven different people, state officials said the individual positivity rate is probably much lower.

In a phone interview on Monday, Gov. Charlie Baker said that the state had been able to scale up the program by vetting testing labs and signing contracts with them, instead of leaving each district to do that work on its own. He estimated that the program, which is using federal Covid relief funds to pay for the tests, could cost $30 million to $40 million.

We started doing it on a demonstration basis with a few school districts just to test it and see if the logistics could work, Mr. Baker said. We now have a working model that is operating at a pretty big scale and in a pretty big state.

The pooled testing program collects nasal swabs from students, faculty and staff members and then tests them in batches, a process that saves time and lab resources. Last week, about 63,000 students and staff members were tested.

If a batch tests negative, everyone in the pool is considered to have a negative result. If a batch tests positive, each person in the pool is then tested.

Massachusetts, which had initially planned to pay for the tests for schools until mid-April, now plans to cover the costs through the end of the school year. It is also encouraging other school districts in the state to sign up.

Mr. Baker said he planned to promote the Massachusetts model to other states. Some districts, like Montgomery County Public Schools, Marylands largest system, are planning to introduce pooled testing in April.

Theres enough money in the various federal bills that have been passed, including the most recent one, to make it possible for states or municipalities both to pay for a program like this, Mr. Baker said.

The state of New York must immediately begin to offer Covid-19 vaccines to all incarcerated people in the states prisons and jails, a judge ruled on Monday, making the state one of few in the nation to provide doses to such a broad population behind bars.

The order, the first involving any of the countrys largest correctional systems, comes as the coronavirus continues to roar through facilities in New York. At least 1,100 people living behind prison walls have tested positive for the virus since the start of last month, and five have died.

But even as corrections staff and many other groups, including some who live in close-contact settings like group homes and homeless shelters, have gained access to the vaccines in recent weeks, most incarcerated people in New York have remained ineligible to receive doses.

Justice Alison Y. Tuitt of State Supreme Court in the Bronx wrote in her ruling on Monday afternoon that people in prisons and jails had been arbitrarily left out of the rollout and that doing so was unfair and unjust and an abuse of discretion.

State officials, she said, irrationally distinguished between incarcerated people and people living in every other type of adult congregate facility, at great risk to incarcerated peoples lives during this pandemic.

She added: There is no acceptable excuse for this deliberate exclusion.

Epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists widely agreed, even in the earliest stages of vaccination efforts when supply was more limited, that the roughly 50,000 people in correctional facilities across the state should be made eligible because of their uniquely high risk for contracting and spreading the virus. A disproportionate number of them are also Black and Latino, groups that have been hit hard by the pandemic.

But vaccinating incarcerated people has proved politically fraught across the country, and states grappling with the same ethical, logistical and legal questions have drawn up drastically different timelines for offering doses. In some states, officials have backtracked from plans to vaccinate prisoners because of political headwinds.

In New York, most of those behind bars had been left out, though correctional officers were included and other high-risk groups like restaurant workers, public-facing government employees and essential building service workers have recently become eligible.

State officials announced on Monday that all adult residents would be eligible to receive a coronavirus vaccine by April 6, which might have led more people behind bars to soon be offered doses even had the ruling not been issued.

Vermont is reporting a sharp spike in coronavirus cases, reaching highs that have not been seen since January.

This is a concerning number of new cases and should not be dismissed, Dr. Mark Levine, the states health commissioner, said at a news conference on Friday.

Vermont hit a single-day case record with 283 new confirmed cases on Friday, according to a New York Times database, making it the first state to set a case record since Jan. 18. (Its seven-day average, 154, is still lower than its peak in January.) Half of the cases reported in the past two weeks were in people under the age of 30, officials said.

The renewed surge has been driven by a number of factors, including pandemic fatigue and the spread of worrisome variants, Dr. Levine said in an interview on Monday. As older people get vaccinated and deaths start to drop, younger people have been more willing to gather in groups, he said.

The University of Vermont has reported a significant increase in confirmed cases among students, climbing to 80 last week from 41 two weeks before. The statewide surge, though, does not appear to be driven largely by college students, Dr. Levine said, since there have not been widespread increases on other campuses.

Cases across the United States have started to rise in recent weeks, after infections began to drop following a post-holiday surge. Scientists have warned for weeks about another increase, as more cases of variants are detected and states lift restrictions. Still, the United States remains behind in its attempts to track variants, though the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions efforts to locate them has recently improved and will continue to grow. States in the Northeast have accounted for about 30 percent of the nations new cases over the past two weeks, up from 20 percent in early February.

Read more:

Covid-19 News: In-Person School Attendance Inches Up but Roadblocks Remain - The New York Times